Saturday, September 4, 2010

Sylvia Plath - Part IX (I'll Be Down to Get You in A Taxi Honey)

Thanks, once again, to Peter Steinberg, over at www.sylviaplath.info, for keeping me informed about all things Plath. I'll be there, just call my name, I'll be there. And meanwhile I'll be sort of dying to know which one of Plath's lines they'll choose to inscribe on her stone. Whatever one they choose (and who are they?) they'll have had to not choose a couple hundred others that would be equally deserving of the honor. I wouldn't want to be on that committee that has to choose, but if I could just choose without being on any committee I would choose this one, from "The Moon and the Yew Tree":

It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet

with the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.

Oops ... that's two sentences; I don't know if more than one is allowed. And the visitors unfamiliar with her work would want to know right off that "it" is the moon. And I don't think think the stone's size is large enough to accommodate so many words in a pleasingly large-enough font.

01 SEPTEMBER 2010

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine’s Poet in Residence and Electors have chosen Sylvia Plath as the 2010 inductee to their Poets' Corner. Plath will join such poets as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, W. H. Auden, and Tennessee Williams, last year’s inductee. The Poet’s Corner was established in 1983, and each poet has a stone engraved with a line from her or his work.

The Cathedral will present a program celebrating Sylvia Plath on Thursday November 4th at 7:30 p.m.; the formal induction will take place on Sunday the 7th at the 4 p.m. Evensong.

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine is located at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, New York 10025. This is in the area of Columbia University, whose Rare Books and Manuscripts Library holds a respectable collection of Plath first and limited editions; including rarities such as Sculptor (an off-print from the Grecourt Review that many consider a separate, monographic publication) and About Sylviaby Diane Ackerman and Howls & Whispers by Ted Hughes.

The event is free and open to the public. More information will appear here as I learn of it.